As many of you know, we have shifted to our own space at dhwaniforum.com . Keeping the convenience of our members in mind and to make it easier for you to jump right into the forum activities, we have begun to send email to the email used at the time of your registration. Please use the enclosed password to login at the new site.

P:S Sometimes the email will be deposited in your spam/junk folder ..Please keep an eye in that folder too

This will be my first post for Dhwani alone, and my centennial post on Jodha Akbar, which makes it a double!

I have been with you on a regular basis ever since August 1, 2013, when Pallavi (Pollyanna) asked me to join this group and share my episode analyses of Jodha Akbar, which I used to post in the IF Jodha Akbar forum, with all of you. Every single analysis that I posted in the IF after that has been put up here as well, and I have been touched and delighted by the warm welcome all of you have given me during these nearly 9 months.

Now that I have stopped posting episode analyses in the IF due to differences with the moderators about their rules and how they were applied, I decided not to abandon Jodha Akbar altogether, which was my first impulse, but instead, as requested by some of my young friends here, move over to Dhwani. Which is what I am doing beginning today.

I hope you will all approve of my decision. As for me, I am relieved to be in a forum that really encourages free speech, of course within the bounds of decency and good manners.

The Mahaepisode: a sad letdown: Now to business. As for the Mahaepisode of Saturday. I was initially inclined to give it a miss, for I have rarely felt so let down by the script for a major episode, which was abysmal, or by the plunge in Jodha’s characterization. It is tiresome to have to keep pointing out faults in a character; one becomes repetitive, and gets frustrated and irritable. But this one needed doing, and much to my relief, I did not, this time, have to go thru Jodha’s nari sammaan bhashan or her earlier, strange pronouncements, whether about her never having seen any love for her in Jalal’s eyes, or that he would like teekha khana, with a fine tooth comb and try and decipher what she was up to.

You will wonder how my task was lightened for me so unexpectedly. It was because of a superb, clinical dissection of Jodha’s bhashan by a young IF friend of mine, Jeannie JA, in her opening post on her thread Jodha’s Monologue: Ego wins over Love, which can be seen at http://www.india-forums.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=3994028&PID=105027937p105027937

Having this excellent piece, I did not have parse Jodha line by line, word by word, as I did for Jalal 2 weeks earlier, in my Shakespearian Heights post of April 6. Instead, I simply made an overall assessment, which is given below.

Sophistry abounding: Now Jodha’s peroration on stree sammaan was, to this mahaepisode, what Jalal’s outburst of April 4, was to that episode 210. It was the core of the mahaepisode, which would stand and fall on the strength of that speech.

In the event, it fell, that too with a resounding thud.

As I listened to every piece of sophistry in Jodha's ode to Rajvanshi nari sammaan, I was really left speechless. You would all have heard it for yourselves, but a look thru Jeannie’s unsparing catalogue reveals even those one might have missed. Every uncomfortable fact that Jodha has fudged, every outright fib like pati ki puja karte hain- as if she had been at this patipuja since day 1 of her wedded life! - and above all the relentlessly self-centred, self-righteous and harshly censorious nature of the whole tirade.

As Jodha surged ahead with her self-laudatory statements and her wholesale condemnation of Jalal, I was busy spotting each inner weakness that was paraded as a virtue, each negative trait that was masquerading as a positive one, while her really warm and lovable qualities seemed to have been lost somewhere along the way.

Worst of all was her utter lack of compassion towards the husband who bends further to appease her that any man would even in 2014, not to speak of a 16th century emperor, and who is clearly at the end of his emotional tether and even his physical strength. NB:Incidentally, why is it made out so often in Jodha Akbar as if onlythe Rajvanshis, men or women, had an impeccable sense of honour and matchless sanskaars? What about the other communities in Hindustan in the 16th century- not just the still alien Mughals, but the Tamils, the Andhras, the Bengalis, et al? It is really strange, this hagiographic approach to one community, and still the Karni Sabha is not happy!

Ego-driven cruelty:The Jodha we saw on Friday is a cruel woman, who cares for nothing but her ego,and who does not know the first thing about love. After hearing Jodha say a few episodes back, to herself of course and quite out of the blue, Shahenshah, hum aapse bahut prem karte hain. I was dumbfounded by this giant leap - from bhavanayein putting out their little shoots like snowdrops after winter,to bahut prem!As my IF friend Adiana says so perceptively, love is never about paana, which is all Jodha thinks it to be, judging from her farewell letter. It is about ek doosre ka ho jana. And she is yet to learn what it is, asal mein prem karna to door ki baat hai.

For in love, there can be no ego. Jalal is in love, for he has no ego any more where she is concerned and he is willing to go to hell and back to get her.

But the mahaepisode made it amply clear that Jodha Begum is NOT in love with Jalal, not now, and perhaps will never be, whatever the CVs might claim. For all that she seemed to remember on Saturday was her hurt pride and her aatmasammaan, not the agony he is going through. This is not my idea of love.

Playing God:The worst of all was the ugly vindictiveness of her kuch apradhon ke liye har dand chota hota hai aur kuch paapon ke liye har prayschchit chota.Jodha is by now clearly convinced that she is God, and has the moral right to hand down such pronouncements with total, harsh conviction. Even a saint would hesitate before saying any such thing, for there is NO sin for which there cannot be a prayaschit. But not our paragon from Amer.

One is left hoping, though I am not vindictive by nature, that something really very bad happens to her, and soon, so that she learns her lesson the hard way. I cannot at the moment think of any credible scenario, and even if I could, it is hardly going to materialise!

Selective retrograde amnesia :As for her harassing Kanha later, Jodha now seems to have forgotten all that she said to her antaraatma, about the role played by her stubborn silence in precipitating Jalal's furious jealousy and all that followed.

This process of selective retrograde amnesia started with her farewell letter to Jalal. As you would all remember, earlier she was clinging to the vachan to explain to us why she was silent, but in her letter, she says it was her peedha at his accusations and his failure to read her eyes make it impossible for her to speak up.

Then again, she confessed to her antaraatma that it was her fault that he was angry with her, because of her obstinate silence. No indication of an such crippling peedha then! But barely a few hours later, the same night, she conveniently forgets all this; there not a word in her letter about her being at fault in precipitating Jalal’s furious outburst.

Things have progressed further since then, and now she is one up on her cheerleader Ammijaan in leaving Jalal to shoulder all the blame for everything that happened. The lover and the beloved:It all boils down to what I have said all along: Jalal will always be the lover and Jodha the beloved. She will never, even at the very end when everything is sorted out and all is sweetness and light, be capable to his kind of deewaangee; she is no Laila or Juliet. I hope Jalal understands this, for otherwise he is in for a major disappointment.

The real culprit: But then the person who is most to blame for the way she behaves is Jalal, for it is he who has lauded her to the skies time and again, adopted and implemented every suggestion of hers, and of late, treated her like a piece of precious Dresden porcelain, right up to the Sujamal fiasco.

In short, he has spoiled her rotten, and the way she treats him now, for an error of judgment for which she was as much responsible as he was, is a direct result of that. Hamida Banu to Hamida Banu, Jalal was one up on his Ammijaan in pampering his Jodha Begum, whose name he takes at least twice in every sentence he utters!

And now that he has realised that he is in love with her, there seem to be no depths to which he will not abase himself to placate her. He has now forgotten all the logical things he had said in his soliloquy to Jodha's portrait – yeh bhi shaayad sangat ka asar hai, this kind of retrograde amnesia! - and is now accepting every accusation Hamida and Jodha have made against him 111%, if not more.

In short he is asking for all that he gets. And he gets it in spades, and then hangs around, looking for all the world like a schoolboy who has just been caned!

For Heaven's sake, he is the Shahenshah-e-Hind, not some roadside Majnun, who can tear his clothes and run around shouting Jodha Begum, Jodha Begum! What sort of emperor is this, who neglects his kingdom and his people for the sake of one woman, no matter how much he loves her? What if there was an attack on Agra while he is running after this wife of his? The demands of Rajadharma:If he now intends to go (despite Jodha's specific ban on his tagging along) after her all the way to Amer, he had better abdicate first. After all, it is not as though he attaches too much importance to his heritage and his calling; he was ready enough to abdicate just to keep his word to Jodha, something that shocked me, being a blatant betrayal of his rajadharma.

In our great epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, the cardinal duty of a king is said to be to his people, and all other relationships and their demands come only after that. But here, for Jalal, it is the very opposite. His awaam comes a very distant second after Jodha Begum, and if Agra were to be attacked and seized while he is away trailing her, why, what does it matter?

The film vs the serial:What I am now convinced of is the clear superiority of the film, bar Rajat's Jalal. I still remember the ease with which Hrithik's Jalal, who was completely in the wrong when he banished Jodha to Amer, turns up there one fine day with pomp and show, identifies his Jodha among dozens of look alikes, apologises with just the right mix of sincerity and imperial hauteur, and when she will still not come, leaves with a throwaway line Hum aur poochenge bhi nahin, aap khud aayengi, or something like that. And of course, in due course, she does.

This Jalal may now be the perfect lover according to Rumi, Kahlil Gibran, Omar Khayyam and all the other icons of the genre, but he is but a hollow shell of an emperor. Or rather an apology for one. His looks in the precap, and just before that when his obsession is embracing her Bapusa with great fervour, made me want to abandon non-violence with a vengeance!

Pedestrian performances:The mahaepisode was deplorable - there seems to be some sort of rule that a mahaepisode in Jodha Akbar has to be even worse than the regular tripe they dish out. Remember the last one, about the harem elections?

The acting , bar a few shots of Jalal, was such standard issue soap stuff as to be both pedestrian and apathetic. if I see any more of Jalal's grieving, desperate face, I shall start climbing the nearest wall. Has the Shahenshah never heard of dignified sadness and regret?

Jodha was like every other soap heroine in full flow, the naari sammaan bhashan being delivered with the same angry tone throughout. There were no nuances, no indication of a clash between her heart and her mind, no underlay of a deep love for Jalal that she cannot deny. Nothing. Only a sullen resentment that spills out all over, which seems to be rooted solely in her ego.And a new speech full of both suppressio veri & suggestio falsi -when did she worship her pati? All the while, there is Jalal looking as if he has to learn it by heart for an exam he is to take! Or as if the wind had changed when he had his pathetic face on and he was stuck with it.

It is not the fault of the actress, who can do much, much better, and has done so in the past. Nor of Rajat, who can be superlative without even trying. They have both been badly shackled and shortchanged by the faulty characterisation and the abysmal script.

The Jodha I wanted: But the ones who have been shortchanged the most are the likes of us. Those who want a feisty, intelligent, non-sanctimonious, smoothly self-assertive, and above all perceptive and compassionate Jodha, who would be all this and feminine too. In fact, my primary grouse against Jodha is that as a 16th century princess and then queen, she is very far from being realistic. No woman in her position in those days could have behaved as she does, and got away with it. She is like a 21st century feminist of the negative kind, self-righteous, obstinate, unimaginative, and where Jalal is concerned, totally lacking in perception, understanding and sensitivity. And in the process of her progressive canonisation by the Hamida Banu-led coterie, these aspects of Jodha's portrayal have only become worse.The dumbing down of Jalal: Perhaps by association with this mindset of hers, and his current obsession with her, Jalal, once so assertive, shrewd, decisive and imperial, has degenerated into a bumbling crybaby who is painful to watch.It has been said that this is not Jodha's journey of love and how she was transformed from a Rajput princess to a Mughal Begum. It is all about the softening of Jalal and hence the story has focused more on the evolution of Jalal's love than Jodha's.

Now, this process has been coming along swimmingly. It is not just the evolution of Jalal's love. It is really about the reverse of Darwinian evolution. Jalal has in fact gone backwards for a vertebrate to an invertebrate.He now also resembles a marshmallow left out in the sun, and he is crying enough to solve the water problems of any city in his empire.

Stupid, unfeeling stunt: If he had retained any of the grey cells with which he was so plentifully endowed in the beginning, he would never have pulled that stupid dead man stunt on Jodha. It was senseless, unfeeling and uncalled for; how did he know how bad the shock to her would be and how she would react? What if she hd collapsed and died on the spot of a heart attack?

He obviously believes that she cares deeply for him, and this alone should have been enough to keep him from spreading this very hurtful rumour to make her come out . Nothing can justify giving someone such a terrible emotional blow.

The straightforward thing for him would have been to go and see her again in her kaksh ( it was amusing to see Jalal adopting all the shudh Hindi terms, like pranam, dhanyavaad & kaksh while talking to the Mathuravaasis. It all comes apart only in the heat of passion, as he harangues the crowd about mohabbatin chaste Urdu, which must have mostly gone clean over their collective heads!) and try his luck. For one thing, it might have made Jodha’s reaction less harsh; her nari sammaan bhashan must have been at least partly fuelled by anger at the nasty trick played on her by Jalal.

Austenian failing: But in the final analysis, one has to cut Jalal some slack. Those of you who are dedicated Austenites will remember the scene at Netherfield between Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy, where he conceds that he does have a failing, a resentful, unyielding temper, which cannot forgive offence easily. Elizabeth responds with Implacable resentment is a shade in the character. But you have chosen your fault well. I really cannot laugh at it.

In the same way, Jalal’s main failing is that he loves this woman to the limits of deewaangee. Aise aashiq se kya gila aur kya shikwa? If Jodha had even a tenth of this overwhelming passion for Jalal, I would be prepared to forgive her anything, anything at all.

Jodha Akbar 220: The meltdown part 2

As for Jodha's journey of love, I have not seen her go anywhere, whether towards the woman who loves Jalal or towards a Mughal begum. She is still exactly where she was, or nearly so, for she no longer hates Jalal.

To realise the truth of this, all one has to do is to revisit the previous episode, No.220, and focus on Jalal’s no holds barred, lone fight to save the widow.

There is the husband for whom she claims to have bahut prem, who, after having suffered a hail of stones and bleeding from the wounds of that attack, is now facing up to a dozen assailants, armed only with a lathi.

So what does our brave heroine do? She does not run out to help him, as would be the instinctive reaction of any woman with the man she loves. Or even to shield and drag away the unfortunate widow.

No. She hides, her face muffled in her pallu, and watches him fight, one against so many, exactly like a 1960s film heroine, the only difference being that she does not wring her hands as they used to do!

Instead, she acts as a silently applauding audience of one, except that what she is applauding is not Jalal, but herself, her lines and her teaching that he has absorbed so well. (Incidentally, he mentions mohabbat 14 times in his speech!) Pretty soon, you will see Jodha Begum somehow given the credit for Akbar's attempt to permit widow remarriage as well. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Footnote: I am generally very protective of Jalal, but I must clarify that he deserves no brownie points, as some feel, for getting Bakshi Banu remarried (and deserves a kayo punch for the creep he chose for her!) or for marrying Salima Begum ( to make sure she and Rahim were safe from Bairam Khan's legion of enemies).

The fact is that the widow remarriage issue was there only for non-Muslims, which in practice meant mostly for the Hindus. There was never anything against Muslim widows remarrying, so there was nothing special in what Jalal did for Bakshi Banu and Salima Begum.

So what he is saying now is for those for whom widow remarriage is taboo and that is revolutionary. In fact, for any such reform to succeed,the social climate has to be right. So Akbar's reform on widow remarriage for Hindus faded away after him and had to be revived by Raja Ram Mohan Roy and other social activists in the 19th century. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- OK, let us let her inertia pass, attributing it to the proprieties of those days. But she does not run out to help him even when she sees him staggering away, and instead she exclaims, as if she was Columbus discovering the New World, Shahenshah ko chot pahunchi hai. unhe aushadi ki aavashyakta hai! What on earth did she think all the khoon bhari maang came from? The local paint shop?

This apart, while Jalal is lost to all but his need to get her back and is in an agony of despair, regret and guilt all this while, Jodha has not been shown to miss him or to think about their special moments together, whereas she replays the Yahan se chale jayiye part over and over and over again in her head, to amplify her sense of having been ill-used and humiliated. The sole exception was that one scene when she weeps and prays to Kanha for Jalal’s well being. Even there, there is no helpless sense of loss of the kind that comes from a lost love.

Oh for Kajri!: I loved Jodha in the immediate aftermath of the Benazir track, and I loved her Kajri avatar even more. Kajri, with her sassy, affectionate, caring ways and her easy camaraderie with Jalal, was bidding fair to be all of the above. But alas, she was too good to be true, and so she has disappeared like a will o' the wisp!

Questions of the week:1)From where does Jodha get this endless supply of her magical lep? Are we to believe that all the ingredients are available wherever she goes? Or, as my young friend Sandhya suggested, does she carry it around in her potli, which probably has Hermione’s Undetectable Extension Charm on it, and can accommodate any number of outfits, plus bottles and bottles of the lep?

2)How come the Mathura vaid takes one sniff at the lep and immediately proclaims it, and its maker, to be altogether shresthatam (the superlative of shrestha in Sanskrit) ? He goes one up even on Jodha’s guru in matters medical, the Gwalior Hakim who treated Jalal after Jodha had inflicted the narnaal disaster on him.

3)How does Bharmal, who was obviously alerted by Jalal after his tete a tete with his Jodha Begum ended in a fiasco, land up in Mathura the same evening? This in the era of no mobile or other phones. One can only presume that Jalal and his portly sasurjee are telepathic, and that Bharmal then apparated into Mathura, Harry Potter style. The apparating is a must, for no broomstick, not the Nimbus 2000 or even the latest model Firebolt could have taken Bharmal’s weight!

Oh lord, just look at the length of this one! I promise to be more concise the next time around, wherever that might be, but kya karein, hum to aise hi hain!Shyamala B.Cowsik

PS: Curiously enough, in the repeat telecasts of the mahaepisode on Zee on Sunday afternoon,and again today, Monday, they had pruned it drastically to just over 21 minutes. They had cut out all of Jodha Begum's monologue, except the mini-dhakkas and the kuch apradhon ke liye har dand chota hota hai aur kuch paapon ke liye har prayschchit chota line. All the rest of the nari sammaan part was knocked out (as was the 400 m dash to the lake and much else, like the teekha khana bloomer).

As a result, it was vastly improved! But still, I wondered about such summary treatment; why would they have done that?

Thanks a lot, my dear Maria, but at the end of it all, what did YOU feel about it? I would be curious to know.Shyamala B.CowsikMaria J wrote:Wow.. ME might have been a disappointment but the reviews here for it have been fab... Loved reading u..

Shamayala ji... You are back! I missed reading you... I have to get my daughter to school and come back to read you ( I'm in a opposite time zone) .. I am tired of everybody's bhasahn on JA... Where have the sparks gone?

Shayamala Ji, Have been a regular reader of yours, But I am always a bit late with getting updated with the shows, and I read your posts a bit late too, in many cases after the post is couple of weeks old, So havent commented regularly, this time, I pat myself, I am on time..

Once again a beautiful writeup, I love your writing style too, you have an impressive vocablory! Congos on your century and wishes to you for choosing to write again!

What bemuses me is that the lady on her own course takes up a promise and by her own laws stands by it, even if she was in Jalal's position, she would have done more damage than Jalal's MU.

We havent for god's sake forgotten her actions during benazir days, though she was driven by her extreme sense of duty to protect her king, she was powered by jealousy. What can she expect the king to do after he discovers that a man has been hiding in one of his begums rooms?

Will he go thinking - oh she might be bound by promise and it might be her duty to abide by it? The utmost duty of those days was to abide by the king, and when the king is questioning, she was bound to answer rightly. If I am wrong correct me.

What pains me is the stupidy of the brother who asked for the promise.. for what reasons, I am still to understand... The same brother didnt have any reason to stop talking when the king asked him...

The king then repents for what was not his fault, goes searching the haughty begum all by himself. He apologises. What else would the begum need? She owes an apology too. Doesnt she? But she decides to act all the more haughty.

then comes the most chidlish decision of such a great king... Why would he put an act to appease one of his angry begums and that too like a dead man? Love can reduce anyone to become putty in the hands of their sweetheart but not so much that one loses his mind so much..

In an attempt to lift Jodha begum, the writers have dropped Akbar the great with such high force that he has been shattered into 100 peices, and then has been smashed under the heels of thier shoes.

In addition to slipshod creativity, I felt that RT n PS were bothered by the weather esp whilst shooting nearby the canal ..

All in all , an episode that ought to be incinerated by Zee , BT n JA Team ...

oye, you did a post on JA? are you still watching it... its a surprise that JA is still on your watchable list!

Vi Ponnu ..Idhu enna Kelvi ?? How could I make a post without watching ..

The only reason why I am sticking to JA is cuz I like History n even though they paint the show with Balalji tar, they are sticking to mainpoints in history... Plus.. i want to see how Jalal weathers the petticoat revolution .

Abavi wrote:Shayamala Ji, Have been a regular reader of yours, But I am always a bit late with getting updated with the shows, and I read your posts a bit late too, in many cases after the post is couple of weeks old, So havent commented regularly, this time, I pat myself, I am on time..

Once again a beautiful writeup, I love your writing style too, you have an impressive vocablory! Congos on your century and wishes to you for choosing to write again!

What bemuses me is that the lady on her own course takes up a promise and by her own laws stands by it, even if she was in Jalal's position, she would have done more damage than Jalal's MU.

We havent for god's sake forgotten her actions during benazir days, though she was driven by her extreme sense of duty to protect her king, she was powered by jealousy. What can she expect the king to do after he discovers that a man has been hiding in one of his begums rooms?

Will he go thinking - oh she might be bound by promise and it might be her duty to abide by it? The utmost duty of those days was to abide by the king, and when the king is questioning, she was bound to answer rightly. If I am wrong correct me.

What pains me is the stupidy of the brother who asked for the promise.. for what reasons, I am still to understand... The same brother didnt have any reason to stop talking when the king asked him...

The king then repents for what was not his fault, goes searching the haughty begum all by himself. He apologises. What else would the begum need? She owes an apology too. Doesnt she? But she decides to act all the more haughty.

then comes the most chidlish decision of such a great king... Why would he put an act to appease one of his angry begums and that too like a dead man? Love can reduce anyone to become putty in the hands of their sweetheart but not so much that one loses his mind so much..

In an attempt to lift Jodha begum, the writers have dropped Akbar the great with such high force that he has been shattered into 100 peices, and then has been smashed under the heels of thier shoes.

Have they lifted Jodha Begum ?? I do not think SO, Vi.. In their endeavor to turn Jodha into a princess who brooked no interference to her honor ..They turned her into a regular heroine of Balaji Stables.. Take away the costumes n put in the sari of today n we will get Archana , Prerna, Tulsi, Sakshi .. I am just hoping that this is the result of the recent discord which has entailed a breakdown of communication thence the proper debriefing of Jodha's character to Paridhi.. For Paridhi can deliver .. when she is guided properly.. we saw her enacting Kajri with aplomb, we saw her singeing Jalal with her disdainful, contemptuous glare when Jalal absolves her n her bro of any culpability in abortion .. I sense an ennui , a laidback complacency in the way the characters are now being taken forward ...

Its not just a journey of one individual, it has to be a journey of 2 .. the soul talks are always of 2 hearts.. never that of one..

Thank u Shyamalaji for the pm. It was as always a pleasure to read ur post. I agree that they r spoiling the story by taking away the dignified mannerism of jalal n jodha. I was aghast at watching jalal folding his hands in front of jodha and begging for forgiveness and also at Hamida bano for nt giving a damn abt how dangerous a situation it is for her son to be in. Also I felt like reminding Hamida bano of the fact that jodha had tried suicide earlier when she was blasting ruqqaiya off for suggesting that jodha could have done so now. But the saddest part is watching a grovelling jalal n a jodha who completely forgot abt her mistakes in the whole fiasco. Now with her going to amer it is even going to be worse as her mother is already feeling guilty for telling her not to come back alone there earlier so now we will even have mainavati pampering jodha and treating her with kid gloves. I wish someone would get mad at her and tell her point blank about her mistakes too but unfortunately we have no one to do so. And poor jalal will now after somehow working hard and begging enough manage to get her maafi he will always remember never to cross her again in the fear of her repeating her tantrums. The cvs are playing around a lot with jodha's character. Where earlier they showed her having no ego in the face of jalal insulting her right and left during Dhakka fiasco and her being honest abt her part int he MU in the anataratma scene now we have a woman who is unreasonable , selfish and stubborn. I hope they change it once again or we will end up seeing a sappy jalal n holier than thou jodha for the rest of the serial. What an epic love story that would be.

Lord deliver me from preaching heroines!Thanks for this brilliant post, Shyamala JiThey call this a LOVE story?My foot!What has love got to do with aatmasammaan?where there is love... u get sammaan without demanding it!

Thanks a lot, my dear Maria, but at the end of it all, what did YOU feel about it? I would be curious to know.Shyamala B.CowsikMaria J wrote:Wow.. ME might have been a disappointment but the reviews here for it have been fab... Loved reading u..

Well havent watched the ME in total only saw bits of it.. The bit I saw was when she said she loved him.. But if she loved him will she not understand that he was angry and didnt mean literally that she leave? And after seeing him try so hard will she keep insulting him?? Ok her insults could mean she was trying to keep her self from hurting.. but doesnt she know that she is causing a hue and cry in her agony??

Hi Aunty, i joined this forum to see ur posts i find your posts interesting. But a doubt, how Jo should react when she saw him, because i thought myself placing there, i will shout something to him, without knowing what i mean. i also thought they both are extremists, and will emote like that only . Waiting for ur reply

akdha wrote:Hi Aunty, i joined this forum to see ur posts i find your posts interesting. But a doubt, how Jo should react when she saw him, because i thought myself placing there, i will shout something to him, without knowing what i mean. i also thought they both are extremists, and will emote like that only . Waiting for ur reply

Hello Akdha!Welcome to Dhwani!

I think, Shyamala Ji would agree with my point of view...I am not sure...but there are several factors that grates here...

Jo is a Princess... there is nothing princessy about her behavior in this show... a princess is trained from infancy in nothing else but being a princess 24x7... in sleep, in dreams, inside out... she is a princess and nothing else... so she can't shout, she can't engage in fisticuffs... she is always dignified... with a capital D.

here she shputs at Jalal... she pushes him

Jalal is an emperor.... a 16th century Muslim ruler... he had hundreds of women in his harem pandering to every whim of his... he will NOT cow down to anyone... be he however much in love with a bratty Rajput Princess.

no woman in those days will do what Jo is doing and get away with it... she will either be packed off to Amer... where she will be given the 3rd degree for insulting her husband... or she will be incarcerated in Agra fort ... where she will be given the 3rd degree for insulting her husband., Either way she will come off the worse in the encounter

Their love story will be fiery and passionate... but will definitely have nothing to do with the Fishmarket.

Hi Shyamala,I do read your posts. However, the only thing I do not like about the lovely write up is that you seems to be criticising the characters too much especially Jodha character based on her dialogues. You should not forget in the analysis that this is a material written by someone or a team of persons and therefore the material which should be analysed. Their failure to write dialogues that will fit the characters created perfectly well.Rajat (Jalal) and Paridha (Jodha) are working with the dialogues given to them by the creativeteam for this sole reason I wish when you analysed or do a summary on the episode you would end thereof by stating that the creative team miss the mark this and that or they should have done it this way or that way in order to portray the characters to us the viewers in this manner. Depending on the written update if am wrong since I do not understand Hindi. Jodha said “yes I care a lot about you” in the outburst and in her letter she said “ the blossoming of love” that kinda implies that the creative team wants us to believe that Jodha has not yet given out herself totally out to fall in love unconditionally with her husband and she is not at the level where Jalal is right now.As to whether they are going to take her there we are yet to see that through their written material and how they intend to get her to that level. She has not reached the level where nothing else matters to her completely only her husband and it is my hope that the CV team will bring her to that level in order to qualify for the epic love they claim of the JA serial.I read a little history that she stood by her husband against her son right, that kinda implies that eventually she got to that level.You are a good analyst though and love reading all your post.

Last edited by Nanayaa623 on 2014-04-21, 19:43; edited 1 time in total

akdha wrote:Hi Aunty, i joined this forum to see ur posts i find your posts interesting. But a doubt, how Jo should react when she saw him, because i thought myself placing there, i will shout something to him, without knowing what i mean. i also thought they both are extremists, and will emote like that only . Waiting for ur reply

Hello Akdha!Welcome to Dhwani!

I think, Shyamala Ji would agree with my point of view...I am not sure...but there are several factors that grates here...

Jo is a Princess... there is nothing princessy about her behavior in this show... a princess is trained from infancy in nothing else but being a princess 24x7... in sleep, in dreams, inside out... she is a princess and nothing else... so she can't shout, she can't engage in fisticuffs... she is always dignified... with a capital D.

here she shputs at Jalal... she pushes him

Jalal is an emperor.... a 16th century Muslim ruler... he had hundreds of women in his harem pandering to every whim of his... he will NOT cow down to anyone... be he however much in love with a bratty Rajput Princess.

no woman in those days will do what Jo is doing and get away with it... she will either be packed off to Amer... where she will be given the 3rd degree for insulting her husband... or she will be incarcerated in Agra fort ... where she will be given the 3rd degree for insulting her husband., Either way she will come off the worse in the encounter

Their love story will be fiery and passionate... but will definitely have nothing to do with the Fishmarket.

So far in this show... nothing fits the bill!

If I may Butt in, Akdha ..

Do u remember the Khema episode right after marriage when Jalal summons her to the men's khema to hear her sing.. Do U remember how she rejects it and at the same time stands up against jalal ?? That is how one expects A princess to react.. with dignity, her words like a noiseless arrow hitting bulls eye n wounding its adversary without moving a finger...

hi .. ref to the subj , i joined this forum only to read your posts...

do pm me on IF........ as i am not regular here and it may take me a while to search topics here....generation gap.... ;-)

Hi there... I'm in my 40s. But I'm younger in my mind. Welcome here... I joined DHWANI for freedom of speech and expression... Which is lacking in most other forums... Ambience is the everything, na?

thanks a lot....this forum is really very friendly.. .. i was infact joking with shyamala when i mentioned the generation gap..

Ahhh... Inside jokes... Me likey... Hope to see you around... I won't be able to watch it till evening, it's 10 in the morning where I am ... Right now reading Tanthya's live update of JA. BTW, my dad is 76 and he almost missed by brothers wedding cause he didn't want to go before JA ended on TV .

On the onset I must confess I donot watch JA the serial. whatever Igather about the show is through browsing the forum.. But with nothing much of interest being on air onSaturday I decided to peek in to the world of Rajputanas and Mughals...Since it was a publicized ME I thought at least the pace and drama would keep me entertained..But oh boy! Icould never have been so wrong in my assumption...As the hour of bhashan, pleadings, tears,worries and plotting went by..I just wondered what if we take away the regal costumes,the shudh language and give it a contemporary feel will the story feel out of place no!But in the context or the emperor Jalal it feels absolutely out of line...Would an emperor who is surrounded by enemies plotting his demise and power..forget everything and run after a woman??

A Rajputanas princess who would have been in a purdah system ofnot exposing herself or mixing with commoners.....would just walk out without her entourage and live in such conditions?? Serials need creative liberties but to stretch it to such yonder is a disservice to the viewer populace in general not to say the utter disgrace to the memory of a ruler who was a wise statesman, visionary and understood that efficiently running a kingdom demands people of merit, religious harmony, matrimonial alliances and ruthless quelling of people who stood in his way of forging ahead...

Badyuni,Abul Faizal wrote treaties on this great king from belonging to the era and having knowledge of the Man..

I guess the story writer has even grander ambition of charting a new story ofAkbar's life living in an an era faraway from the times of the emperor and having his fertile imagination asthe only credible source of story writing...

Telly viewing in the 21 st century after all comes with a 30 sec disclaimer of being a figment of imagination and bearing no shred of similarity with anything living or long dead...

Pity Badyuni and Abul Fazal could never know the merits of disclaimers! For them veering to much into making the emperor look like a rag doll and not one who is the supreme of all men on earth would have meant the guillotine..